[carapace]

This comment of yours is an amazingly good example, even an exemplar, of itself!

Well done! (I mean that. It probably sounds snarky but I swear I'm just impressed with how well the self-referentiality held up over most of the whole thing.)

Anyhow, I once got to talk to Alan Kay on here. There's a lot of noise, sure, but the signal here, when you get it, is outstanding.

[SantalBlush]

It's actually not a good example of the described behavior at all. The commenter was clearly opining about how some people act on HN, not feigning expertise in some field.

[kzrdude]

I want to ask about - sometimes people presume a statement on a forum like this is an authoritative statement, when it's just an opinion.

Why don't we always just consider posts on forums to be just some opinion, from the poster's point of view, isn't that how a conversation works? Though I know expectations differ, I'm not sure why.

[carapace]

Let me own up to it: to some extent I was just teasing the OP.

[kzrdude]

aw, I want to discuss the question in general, not specifically. Another time.